New Delhi Orphanage Enriches Flat Itinerary

November 26, 1995|By Patrick Soran. Special to the Tribune.

NEW DELHI — My things-to-do list for a week in India's capital was pretty much the standard fare: tour the Red Fort, catch the sound and light show, get around to the bazaars, take a train to the Taj Mahal one day and shop for souvenirs another. Cleaning and feeding an orphan girl at Mother Teresa's orphanage just wasn't on the agenda.

"Hold her," says Sister Nyssa.

Sister and I are in an immaculately clean room--it seems to me like the only one in India--and she has just handed me an 8-month-old baby.

"Love her for a bit, and I'll go get a bottle," she urges in broken English as she scurries off in her halo of white cotton habit.

India is hard on Western sensibilities. The air is so dusty you don't breathe it, you shovel it in. The markets are so thick with on-the-hoof, in-your-face salespeople that shopping is akin to voluntary assault and battery. Beggars stump up to every passerby, hands outstretched. Many are maimed at birth to make them more pathetic, hence more profitable. At all costs, avoid making eye contact.

All this takes a psychic toll on many visitors. On Day Four a mild depression often sets in. The desire to stay in the hotel and skip the day's sightseeing is strong.

Which explains why I'm chatting with the concierge at the Hyatt Regency Delhi, my luxe oasis from the din, about solutions to the country's many problems. He's explaining how the hotel contributes hundreds of unserved meal portions to a food bank that delivers them to handicapped children.

Then a thought crosses my mind. "When Hillary Rodham Clinton was here," I ask, "didn't she visit Mother Teresa's orphanage?" Indeed she had, and after a flurry of discussion and a flutter of phone books a telephone number and vague directions materialize. I call.

After chatting about the orphanage I tell Sister Joyce, the Mother Superior, that I'd like to make a donation.

"We don't accept donations," she replies. This strikes me as somewhat astonishing. "If you want to help us, come here and give us some of your time," she suggests instead.

So that afternoon I cross the frenetic city in an open-topped, three-wheel jitney, get let out in a park, ask directions of strangers, and wind my way through the alleys of a not-too-bad neighborhood to come upon a closed gate. I hear children playing so I knock and a man eagerly runs up.

"Please come in," he greets in his clipped, top-of-the-mouth Indian accent, "Come in."

"I'd like to volunteer," I volunteer.

"Ah yes," he smiles, "this way, this way."

He ushers me into a small reception room, a room almost maternal with the scent--apparently universal--of fresh baby powder. Images gallery the walls: Indira Gandhi, the pope, Christ and, by far the largest of all, Mother Teresa's wrinkled face beams out of a frame. Okay, I think, they've got me here, now comes the sales pitch.

One-hundred-sixty-four children live here, she tells me, from age 3 months to 10 years. Most are girls, unwanted and abandoned precisely because they are girls. About half are adopted by middle-class Indian families, the others go to German, Swiss or Austrian homes. The babies that go to American homes come from another orphanage.

She tours me through three rooms, each spotless, each lined with matching cribs. Each crib is occupied by a matching baby in matching flannel jammies.

The rooms are too clean, the babies too pretty, the nuns too sweet. Surely I'm witnessing the public relations residue from the recent visit by the wife of the U.S. president, my cynical mind calculates. It can't be real.

Then Sister Nyssa hands me a bundle of baby named Dinish and tells me to love her a bit while she gets a bottle and I'm left standing in an orphanage on Day Four of my Delhi trip coddling an orphan Indian baby. She has lively brown eyes and deep brown skin. A wisp of russet brown hair peeks out from under white flannel swaddling. My cynicism recedes.

When Sister Nyssa returns with a bottle I feed Dinish and continue my questions. The nuns are all Indian. Nyssa felt "called" five years ago, trading her job as a nurse for vows of chastity, poverty, obedience and "whole-hearted free service." She spent a year in Calcutta with lepers, has been here four years.

Mother Teresa's order operates six missions in Delhi, she goes on, but only one orphanage. It opened in 1959. And Mother is adamant: no fundraising--God will provide. Many locals sacrifice sweets or movies to give money. (So they do accept donations!) Many Indians of the Sikh religion--known for their charity work--bring food and clothing.

Visitors are always welcome to share in the work. Wives from the European embassies come every week.